FLEXIBLE FITNESS: Training muscles not joints

Tuesday

Nov 21, 2017 at 11:33 AM

By Jeff Smith/Daily News Correspondent

Fitness, exercise and sports participation trends are always changing. Fitness and sports activities across a wide variety of intensities from chair-based exercises to extreme sports such as triathlons and marathons. For example, in an Ironman triathlon a person competes across three events typically running 26.2 miles, swimming 2.4 miles, and bicycling 112 miles in one day! An ultra-marathon could be 100 miles of running as one event.

Ages of participants in fitness, recreational activities, and sports may begin in preschool and continue into a person’s nineties and beyond. According to the New York Times article by Karen Crouse, (SEPT. 21, 2015) Don Pellman participated in Senior Olympics at the age of 100 years old and set multiple records.

People are challenging their bodies over an entire lifetime and across a wide range of activities and physical demands. Most people think about training their muscles but are unaware of the concept of protecting their joints while doing so. Muscles are the engines that power the movement across joints. When training our muscles, we do not want to add additional wear and tear on our joints. This is important to allow for a lifetime of movement.

Components that make up a joint include the bones, ligaments and cartilage where movement occurs. During activities like yard work, walking, climbing stairs, and arising from a squat position, the knee and hip joints may be exposed to forces that are more than double our body weight. As these types of motions occur repeatedly throughout the day, our joints are repeatedly being subjected to extreme forces.

Muscles can be thought of as the natural engines that move joints and must control the forces that cross our joint. Joints are surrounded by muscle which is how our joints move. Whether it is with reaching with our arms, walking with our legs or turning from our neck and back; muscles and joints all work together. Sometimes when training the muscles, pain may be felt in the joints; this pain should not be ignored.

Protecting your joints during exercise, sport, and recreational activities means understanding what muscle training and muscle fatigue feel like so that you do not stretch or sprain underlying joint structures. There are hundreds of muscles in our bodies all designed to handle different movements across hundreds of joints. These muscles are challenged to be able to control the demands and forces that cross all these joint.

Know your body. Remember that exercises are for training muscles which may become fatigued. In order to prevent injury, it is important to respect muscle fatigue and use proper exercise technique. If you are experiencing pain or suffer an injury during a fitness, sport, or exercise activity consult your doctor or a physical therapist for guidance on how to best recover and safely and effectively return to your activities.